Cold Weather Teams in the National Football League and Home-Field Advantage
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Proceedings of International Mathematical Sciences ISSN:2717-6355, URL: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/pims Volume III Issue 1 (2021), Pages 10-24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47086/pims.952438 COLD WEATHER TEAMS IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE AND HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE BRANDON JOLY* AND MEHMET DIK** *BELOIT, WISCONSIN, USA. **BELOIT, WISCONSIN, USA. Abstract. The National Football League (NFL) has long had this idea of home-field advantage when teams play at home where they win more oftheir games. However, home games entail many things such as home fan atten- dance and weather. In considering the mean winning percentage of home games played during the winter months of December, January, and February by Cold Weather Teams, and the mean winning percentage of all home games played and all December, January, and February home games played, the null hypothesis would be that there is no difference in the means. By rejecting the null hypothesis, it would lead to the conclusion that cold weather plays a fac- tor in determining NFL games. This hypothesis testing is important because if teams in \colder weather climates" gain a significant advantage during the colder months of December, January, and February, the impacts of playing in an open grass stadium during these months will have a greater impact on the playoffs and draft, which is decided based on final NFL standings. Thefinding is that Cold Weather Teams have a significant advantage when compared to the other data found, which suggests that cold weather tends to impact NFL games more than expected. 1. Introduction Before the start of the 2021 league year and since the 2002 season, the NFL has been composed of 32 teams, each team playing 16 games, 8 of which are considered home games [1]. From 2002-2019, the NFL would play a total of 266 games that included a home team, which included playoff games, but excluded the Super Bowl which is played on a neutral field; however, in 2020, the NFL expanded the playoff field by one team in the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC) to create 268 games that included a home team [2]. However, the 2020 NFL season is full of oddities, including changes to the schedule of 11 teams due to the Covid-19 pandemic [3], resulting in the Denver Broncos without a starting quarterback (QB) play a game [4], and it is also the first time the host 2020 Mathematics Subject Classification. 62D05. Key words and phrases. NFL home-field advantage; hypothesis testing; paired differences test; cold weather teams. ©2021 Proceedings of International Mathematical Sciences. Submitted on 14.06.2021, Accepted on 28.06.2021. Communicated by Ibrahim Canak. 10 COLD WEATHER TEAMS IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE ... 11 city of Super Bowl game was the home stadium of a team that participated, which brings the number of home games of the first team to 269 [5]. In completion, this research project is trying to reject the null hypothesis that there is not a significant advantage for the Cold Weather Teams, during the months of December, January, and February. 2. Method and Materials The research project defines home games as games that are played at ateam's home-field or was voluntarily played at a neutral site in agreement with theNFL that the game would count as a home game for that team in order to include games played in London, Canada, and other places. The definition used to deter- mine \cold weather games" was if the game was played in December, January, or February of any given league season. In reference to \cold weather teams" this is for teams that play in an outdoor environment (not a dome) above the 39◦N latitude line. These teams include the Chicago Bears (Memorial Stadium used in 2002 at 40.099365234◦N [6], Soldier Field used from 2003-Present at 41.8625332◦N) [7], Green Bay Packers (Lambeau Field used from 1957-Present at 44.501389◦N)[8], Kansas City Chiefs (Arrowhead Stadium used from 1972-Present at 39.048889◦N) [9], Buffalo Bills (Bills Stadium used from 1973-Present at 42.774◦N [10] and \Toronto Series" from 2008-2011 at the Rogers Centre, Toronto Canada [11] at 43.641438◦N)[12], Cleveland Browns (FirstEnergy Stadium used from 1999-Present at 41.506111◦N)[13], Cincinnati Bengals (Paul Brown Stadium used from 2000- Present at 39.095◦N)[14], Denver Broncos (Empower Field at Mile High used from 2001-Present at 39.743952◦N)[15], New England Patriots (Gillette Stadium used from 2002-Present at 42.091◦N)[16], Pittsburgh Steelers (Heinz Field used from 2001-Present at 40.446667◦N)[17], Philadelphia Eagles (Veterans Stadium used from 1971-2002 at 39.906667◦N[18], Lincoln Financial Field used from 2003-Present at 39.900833◦N)[19], Seattle Seahawks (Lumen Field used from 2002-Present at 47.5952◦N) [20], Baltimore Ravens (M&T Bank Stadium used from 1998-Present at 39.278056◦N)[21], New York Jets and Giants (Giants Stadium used from 1984-2009 at 40.812222◦N [22], MetLife Stadium used from 2010-Present at 40.813528◦N)[23], and Minnesota Vikings (TCF Bank Stadium [64] used from 2014-2015 at 44.976◦N)[24]. The research only takes into account home games from the 2002 season and on- wards because that is when the Houston Texans became the 32nd team in the NFL [25]. 3. Results Between the years 2002-2020, there were 5057 games in this time period. The overall record of all teams was 5046-5046-22 which gives you an overall winning per- centage of 50% or 0.50. This will allow this study to assume the odds of winning or losing a football game in the NFL is 50/50 probability and is random which is de- fined by \events that cannot be predicted with certainty, but the relative frequency with which they occur in a long series of trials is often remarkably stable," [26]. The table and graph below shows this phenomenon is associated with NFL teams and their winning percentage, home-field winning percentage, and cold weather winning percentage from 2002-2019 and 2002-2020. *Winning percentage was calculated by taking (wins + (ties*0.5))/(total number of games).* 12 BRANDON JOLY AND MEHMET DIK Table 1: NFL Teams Winning Percentages Table. NFL Winning Percentages [27] Team 2002- 2002- Home- Home- Cold Cold 2019 2020 field field Weather Weather 2002- 2002- 2002- 2002- 2019 2020 2019 2020 Atlanta Fal- 0.528 0.514 0.587 0.570 0.587 0.562 cons (Atl) [28] Arizona Car- 0.448 0.450 0.568 0.564 0.640 0.623 dinals (Ari) [29] Baltimore 0.580 0.585 0.720 0.715 0.673 0.691 Ravens (Bal) [30] Buffalo Bills 0.434 0.456 0.521 0.545 0.489 0.531 (Buf) [31] Carolina 0.522 0.511 0.567 0.551 0.660 0.633 Panthers (Car) [32] Cincinnati 0.463 0.453 0.537 0.529 0.553 0.540 Bengals (Cin) [33] Chicago 0.481 0.481 0.547 0.538 0.500 0.491 Bears (Chi) [34] Cleveland 0.310 0.331 0.378 0.398 0.351 0.364 Browns (Cle) [35] Dallas Cow- 0.540 0.531 0.584 0.580 0.462 0.488 boys (Dal) [36] Denver 0.563 0.550 0.647 0.627 0.66 0.635 Broncos (Den) [37] Detroit Li- 0.356 0.353 0.444 0.428 0.333 0.310 ons (Det) [38] Houston 0.453 0.443 0.540 0.525 0.542 0.510 Texans (Hou) [39] Green Bay 0.606 0.615 0.697 0.703 0.745 0.750 Packers (GB) [40] Indianapolis 0.620 0.621 0.697 0.699 0.759 0.768 Colts (Ind) [41] COLD WEATHER TEAMS IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE ... 13 Continuation of Table 6 Team 2002- 2002- Home- Home- Cold Cold 2019 2020 field field Weather Weather 2002- 2002- 2002- 2002- 2019 2020 2019 2020 Jacksonville 0.398 0.381 0.483 0.464 0.500 0.479 Jaguars (Jax) [42] Kansas City 0.525 0.544 0.592 0.605 0.630 0.644 Chiefs (KC) [43] Las Vegas 0.360 0.367 0.432 0.422 0.422 0.396 Raiders (LVR) [44] Los Angeles 0.537 0.532 0.591 0.586 0.588 0.593 Chargers (LAC) [45] Los Angeles 0.419 0.430 0.476 0.490 0.422 0.447 Rams (LAR) [46] Miami Dol- 0.438 0.448 0.503 0.510 0.551 0.558 phins (Mia) [47] Minnesota 0.515 0.511 0.649 0.635 0.592 0.588 Vikings (Min) [48] New Eng- 0.761 0.746 0.838 0.829 0.838 0.829 land Patriots (NE) [49] New York 0.488 0.483 0.490 0.484 0.404 0.400 Giants (NYG) [50] New York 0.452 0.435 0.531 0.510 0.581 0.578 Jets (NYJ) [51] Philadelphia 0.580 0.565 0.609 0.601 0.600 0.596 Eagles (Phi) [52] Pittsburgh 0.637 0.640 0.706 0.710 0.724 0.710 Steelers (Pit) [53] San Fran- 0.460 0.456 0.557 0.535 0.630 0.592 cisco 49ers (SF) [54] Seattle Sea- 0.578 0.585 0.703 0.707 0.702 0.689 hawks (Sea) [55] 14 BRANDON JOLY AND MEHMET DIK Continuation of Table 6 Team 2002- 2002- Home- Home- Cold Cold 2019 2020 field field Weather Weather 2002- 2002- 2002- 2002- 2019 2020 2019 2020 Tampa Bay 0.416 0.438 0.449 0.462 0.333 0.375 Buccaneers (TB) [56] Tennessee 0.485 0.494 0.534 0.535 0.571 0.558 Titans (Ten) [57] Washington 0.401 0.402 0.445 0.439 0.311 0.292 Football Team (WFT) [58] New Orleans 0.574 0.583 0.612 0.617 0.509 0.517 Saints (NO) [59] End of Table-*all decimals were rounded to the nearest thousandth* Figure 1.